OMNI

US GLOBAL MILITARY BASES NEWSLETTER
#3, SEPTEMBER 21, 2017.

Compiled by Dick Bennett for Peace,
Justice, and the Environment.

Contents
US GLOBAL MILITARY BASES NEWSLETTER #3, SEPTEMBER
21, 2017. (UN International Day of
Peace).

US
Middle East Bases

Gambrell,
Large US Bases at the Gulf

Tomgram
and David Vine, Greater Middle East Bases

Additional
Harms

Hickman,
Burning Waste

Global
Warming and Flooded Bases

Union
of Concerned Scientists

Say
No to Bases

Apel
and Percy, Cuba Conferences: Symposia for Closure

4th
and 5th International Seminars at Guantanamo for Abolishing Foreign
Bases

Ann
Wright, Report on the 5th Seminar

Direct
Action against Bases in Okinawa

[By reading this newsletter we become at least
an outrider of the Movement to curtail the US constellation of bases from S.
Europe and the Middle East to Africa and SW Asia and Pacific. Do you
want health care for all, repaired bridges, better schools? Then advocate conversion of imperial $trillions
to pressing needs. Pass this on.
–Dick]

US
FOREIGN BASES

[I read
Arkansas’ statewide newspaper every morning for a bit of breaking international
news. Fortunately the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette subscribes to
the Associated Press, many of whose reporters are well-informed and able to
provide contexts for their stories, as in the following where we learn, in a
few paragraphs about our base in Qatar, about the many recent major bases
nearby. –Dick]

Posted:
September 15, 2017 at 3:13 a.m.Qatari Emir
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani (center front) poses for a photo Monday with
the Emiri Air Force at al-Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al
Thani’s visit to the air base throws into sharp relief the delicate balancing
act the U.S. faces in addressing the Qatar crisis.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Qatar's emir
recently received a warm welcome at the sprawling military base his troops
share with thousands of American soldiers, despite being persona non grata to
four U.S.-allied Arab states that accuse his wealthy Persian Gulf nation of
sponsoring extremists.

Qatar's al-Udeid Air Base, a crucial staging ground
for U.S. operations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, is one of several American
military outposts across the Gulf that are intended to serve as a bulwark
against Iran but now put Washington in a delicate balancing act. . . .

The U.S. has deepened its military
relationships across the region in the nearly two decades since it helped expel
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait.

The island nation of
Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. Kuwait, which has also sought to
mediate the Qatar dispute, is home to 13,500 American troops and the forward
command of U.S. Army Central. The United Arab Emirates' lage Jebel Ali port in
Dubai is the Navy's biggest port of call outside of the U.S., while American
forces also fly out of al-Dhafra Air Base near Abu Dhabi.

Some 10,000 American troops
are stationed in Qatar, a small, energy-rich peninsular nation that sticks out
like a thumb into the Persian Gulf. Most work out of the vast al-Udeid Air Base
just south of the capital, Doha, which hosts the forward operating base of the
U.S. military's Central Command. By comparison, experts estimate Qatar's own
military strength at some 11,800 troops, one of the region's smallest forces. MORE http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2017/sep/15/qatar-diplomatic-crises-weighs-on-u-s-b/
[On arms deals, role of Israel, and
more.]

For more
on US efforts to control the Middle East read the following essay by David Vine
and Col. (ret.) Andrew Bacevich’s America’s
War for the Greater Middle East.

[When you
feel dispirited by the ever-widening US empire pressing against the boundaries
of designated “enemies,” especially during this week of Burns and Novick’s
Vietnam War series on PBS which reminds us how US Cold Warriors invaded Viet
Nam, remember also the exemplary US scholars who are exposing US global
militarism, like Tom Engelhardt and David Vine. Any citizen
can be empowered by them to speak up to generals like Lieutenant General Raymond “Tony” Thomas.–Dick]

Meet the hottest new
commander in the increasingly secretive world of American warfare, Lieutenant General Raymond “Tony” Thomas.
A rare portrait in the Washington Post paints
him as a “shadowy figure” -- an appropriate phrase for the general who has been
leading the U.S. military’s “manhunters,” aka Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC. They are considered the crème de la crème among
America’s
ever-larger crew of Special Operations forces, now at almost 70,000 and growing. Thomas is reportedly slated to take over
Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, and so head up that now massive secret
military cocooned inside the U.S. military. To put its ranks in perspective,
think of the active duty militaries of Argentina (73,000), Australia
(56,000), Canada (66,000), Chile (61,000), or South Africa (62,000). In
other words, our secret “warriors” now outnumber the military contingents of
major nations.

As America’s
leading counterterror general, Thomas has a reputation for bluntness. In
a rare public interview last April, he offered these striking comments
about the country’s global war on terror: “[Y]ou can’t look at the array [of
metrics] right now and not sense that we’re losing -- we’re losing right across
the board from the North African littoral through to Afghanistan and
Pakistan. There are some good news stories... [but] across the board
we’re not winning and I don’t think you need a lot of empirical data to tell
you that.” TomDispatch has longsaid the same thing, of course, but never better.

Still, if
you’re trying to imagine what a man with such views sees in his crystal ball
when it comes to America’s failing wars and conflicts, don’t for a second think
that he’s in favor of cutting back. In the same interview, he mentions
how “disappointed” he’s been by the “tempered” nature of Washington’s response
to “the long war” against terrorism and wonders why the U.S. isn’t ramping up
its efforts, if not to a “World War II level,” then at least to a “Vietnam War
level.” (Remind me, General Thomas, how did that Vietnam ramping-up turn
out?) [And compare General Westmoreland’s
many ramping up appeals to LBJ, who resisted at first and then “surged” again
and again with tens of thousands of lethal troops and more bombs than were
dropped in WWII. –D]

His rise to
the command of SOCOM should highlight something that, despite all the publicity given
to America’s special ops troops, seldom comes through here. On a
startling, even monstrous scale, American war, like much else in American life,
has headed to the dark side. For our own “safety,” Americans are to know
ever less about what those elite warriors are doing in our name as they operate
in the shadows in at least 147 countries across the planet.

Today, TomDispatch regular David Vine, author of Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World,
analyzes an allied topic, also seldom brought up in this country: that, to do what they do, those secret forces
will make use of the historically unprecedented “empire of bases” Washington
has been constructing across the Greater Middle East for decades and has more recently been building in Africa as well. Let
him fill you in on those hundreds of military bases scattered around the planet
that are the face our country presents so prominently to so many foreigners and
that Americans almost never notice.

Let me just
add one thing: it’s worth asking what those special ops forces of “ours,”
relied on ever more heavily from one administration to the next, and settling
into so many bases, actually represent. It’s hard to argue that they are
there for the defense of this country. Like the bases themselves, they
are, it seems, carrying out the increasingly messy business of empire in the
far reaches of the planet. They are, you might say, Washington’s imperial shock troops. Tom

Doubling
Down on a Failed StrategyThe Pentagon’s Dangerous “New” Base Plan
By David Vine [Also available in Veterans for Peace, Peace in Our Times (Winter 2016), where
I read it. –Dick]

Amid the
distractions of the holiday season, the New York Times revealed that the Obama administration is considering a
Pentagon proposal to create a “new” and “enduring” system of military bases
around the Middle East. Though this is being presented as a response to
the rise of the Islamic State and other militant groups, there's remarkably little
that’s new about the Pentagon plan. For more than 36 years, the U.S. military
has been building an unprecedented constellation of bases that stretches from
Southern Europe and the Middle East to Africa and Southwest Asia.

The record of these bases is disastrous. They have cost tens
of billions of dollars and provided support for a long list of undemocratic
host regimes, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and Djibouti. They have
enabled a series of U.S. wars and military interventions, including the 2003 invasion
of Iraq, which have helped make the Greater Middle East a cauldron of
sectarian-tinged power struggles, failed states, and humanitarian catastrophe.
And the bases have fueled radicalism, anti-Americanism, and the growth of the
very terrorist organizations now targeted by the supposedly new strategy.

If there is much of
anything new about the plan, it’s the public acknowledgement of what some (including TomDispatch) have longsuspected: despite years of denials about the existence of any
“permanent bases” in the Greater Middle East or desire for the same, the
military intends to maintain a collection of bases in the region for decades,
if not generations, to come.

Thirty-Six
Years of Base Building

According to
the Times, the Pentagon wants to build up a string
of bases, the largest of which would permanently host 500 to 5,000 U.S.
personnel. The system would include four "hubs" -- existing bases in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Djibouti, and Spain -- and smaller "spokes" in
locations like Niger and Cameroon. These bases would, in turn, feature Special
Operations forces ready to move into action quickly for what Secretary of
Defense Ashton Carter has called “unilateral crisis response” anywhere in the Greater Middle
East or Africa. According to unnamed Pentagon officials quoted by theTimes,
this proposed expansion would cost a mere pittance, just "several million
dollars a year."

Far from new,
however, this strategy predates both the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. In
fact, it goes back to 1980 and the Carter Doctrine.
That was the moment when President Jimmy Carter first asserted that the United
States would secure Middle Eastern oil and natural gas by “any means necessary,
including military force.” Designed to prevent Soviet intervention in the
Persian Gulf, the Pentagon build-up under Presidents Carter and Ronald Reagan
included the creation of installations in Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and on the
Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. During the first Gulf War of 1991, the Pentagon
deployed hundreds of thousands of troops to Saudi Arabia and neighboring
countries. After that war, despite the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the
U.S. military didn't go home. Thousands of U.S. troops and a significantly
expanded base infrastructure remained in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Bahrain
became home to the Navy’s Fifth Fleet. The Pentagon built large air installations in
Qatar and expanded operations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.

Following the
2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon spent
tens of billions of dollars building and expanding yet more bases. At the
height of those U.S.-led wars, there were more than 1,000 installations, large and small, in Afghanistan and Iraq
alone. Despite the closing of most U.S. bases in the two countries, the
Pentagon still has access to at least nine major bases in
Afghanistan through 2024. After leaving Iraq in 2011, the military returned in 2014 to reoccupy at least six installations.
Across the Persian Gulf today, there are still U.S. bases in every country save
Iran and Yemen. Even in Saudi Arabia, where widespread anger at the U.S.
presence led to an official withdrawal in 2003, there are still small U.S.
military contingents and
a secret drone base. There are secret bases in Israel, four installations in Egypt, and at least one in Jordan near the Iraqi border.Turkey hosts 17 bases, according to the Pentagon. In the
wider region, the military has operated drones from at least five bases in Pakistan in recent years and there
are nine new installations in Bulgaria and Romania, along with a Clinton administration-era base still
operating in Kosovo.

In Africa, Djibouti’s Camp Lemonnier, just miles across the Red Sea from the Arabian
Peninsula, has expanded dramatically since U.S. forces moved in after 2001. There are now upwards of 4,000 troops on the 600-acre
base. Elsewhere, the military has quietly built a collection of small bases and sites for drones, surveillance flights,
and Special Operations forces from Ethiopia and Kenya to Burkina Faso and
Senegal. Large bases in Spain and Italysupport what are now thousands of U.S. troops regularly
deploying to Africa.

A
Disastrous Record

After 36
years, the results of this vast base build-up have been, to put it mildly,
counterproductive. As Saudi Arabia illustrates, U.S. bases have often helped
generate the radical militancy that they are now being designed to defeat. The
presence of U.S. bases and troops in Muslim holy lands was, in fact, a major
recruiting tool for al-Qaeda and part of Osama bin Laden’s professed motivation for the 9/11 attacks.

Across the
Middle East, there’s a correlation between a U.S. basing presence and al-Qaeda’s
recruitment success. According to former West Point professor Bradley Bowman,
U.S. bases and troops in the Middle East have been a “major catalyst for anti-Americanism and radicalization”
since a suicide bomber killed 241 Marines in Lebanon in 1983. In Africa, a growing U.S. base and troop presence has
“backfired,” serving as a boon for insurgents, according to research published
by the Army’s Military Reviewand the Oxford Research Group. A recent U.N. report suggests that the U.S. air campaign against
IS has led foreign militants to join the movement on “an unprecedented scale.”

Part of the
anti-American anger that such bases stoke comes from the support they offer to
repressive, undemocratic hosts. For example, the Obama administration offered
only tepid criticism of the Bahraini government, crucial for
U.S. naval basing, in 2011 when its leaders violently cracked down on pro-democracy protesters with the help of
troops from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Elsewhere, U.S. bases offer legitimacy to hosts the Economist Democracy Index considers “authoritarian
regimes,” effectively helping to block the spread of democracy in countries
including Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia,
Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

Low-Balling

The
Pentagon’s basing strategy has not only been counterproductive in encouraging
people to take up arms against the United States and its allies, it has also
been extraordinarily expensive. Military bases across the Greater Middle Eastcost the United States tens of billions of dollars every
year, as part of an estimated $150 billion in annual spending to maintain bases and
troops abroad. Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti alone has an annual rent of $70
million and at least $1.4 billion in ongoing expansion costs. With the
Pentagon now proposing an enlarged basing structure of hubs and spokes from
Burkina Faso to Afghanistan, cost estimates reported in the New York
Times in the “low millions” are laughable, if not intentionally
misleading. (One hopes the Government Accountability Office is already
investigating the true costs.)

The only
plausible explanation for such low-ball figures is that officials are taking
for granted -- and thus excluding from their estimates -- the continuation of
present wartime funding levels for those bases. In reality, further entrenching
the Pentagon’s base infrastructure in the region will commit U.S. taxpayers to
billions more in annual construction, maintenance, and personnel costs
(while civilian
infrastructure in the U.S. continues to be underfunded
and neglected).

The idea that
the military needs any additional money to bring, as the Timesput it, "an ad hoc series of existing bases into
one coherent system" should shock American taxpayers. After all, the
Pentagon has already spent so many billions on them. If military planners
haven't linked these bases into a coherent system by now, what exactly have they
been doing?

In fact, the
Pentagon is undoubtedly resorting to an all-too-familiar funding strategy --
using low-ball cost estimates to secure more cash from Congress on a
commit-now, pay-the-true-costs-later basis. Experience shows that once the military gets such new
budget lines, costs and bases tend to expand, often quite dramatically.
Especially in places like Africa that have had a relatively small U.S. presence
until now, the Pentagon plan is a template for unchecked growth. As Nick
Turse has shown at TomDispatch, the military has
already built up “more than 60 outposts and access points.... in at least 34
countries” across the continent while insisting for years that it had only one
base in Africa, Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. With Congress finally passing
the 2016 federal budget, including billions in increased military spending, the Pentagon’s base plan looks
like an opening gambit in a bid to get even more money in fiscal year 2017.

Perpetuating
Failure

Above all,
the base structure the Pentagon has built since 1980 has enabled military
interventions and wars of choice in 13 countries in the Greater Middle East. In the absence
of a superpower competitor, these bases made each military action -- worst of
all the disastrous invasion of Iraq -- all too easy to contemplate, launch, and
carry out. Today, it seems beyond irony that the target of the Pentagon’s
“new” base strategy is the Islamic State, whose very existence and growth we
owe to the Iraq War and the chaos it created. If the White House and Congress
approve the Pentagon’s plan and the military succeeds in further entrenching
and expanding its bases in the region, we need only ask: What violence will
this next round of base expansion bring?

Thirty-six
years into the U.S. base build-up in the Greater Middle East, military force
has failed as a strategy for controlling the region, no less defeating
terrorist organizations. Sadly, this infrastructure of war has been in
place for so long and is now so taken for granted that most Americans seldom
think about it. Members of Congress rarely
question the usefulness of the bases or the billions they have appropriated to
build and maintain them. Journalists, too, almost never report on the subject
-- except when news outlets publish material strategically leaked by the Pentagon, as appears to be
the case with the “new” base plan highlighted by the New York Times.

Expanding the
base infrastructure in the Greater Middle East will only perpetuate a
militarized foreign policy premised on assumptions about the efficacy of war
that should have been discredited long ago. Investing in “enduring” bases
rather than diplomatic, political, and humanitarian efforts to reduce conflict
across the region is likely to do little more than ensure enduring war.

Thousands
of American soldiers are returning from the battlefields of Iraq and
Afghanistan with severe wounds from chemical war. They are not the victims
of ruthless enemy warfare, but of their own military commanders. These
soldiers, afflicted with rare cancers and respiratory diseases, were sickened
from the smoke and ash swirling out of the “burn pits” where military
contractors incinerated mountains of trash, including old stockpiles of mustard
and sarin gas, medical waste, and other toxic material.

Based on thousands of government documents, over five hundred in-depth medical
case studies, and interviews with more than one thousand veterans and
active-duty GIs, The Burn Pits will shock the nation. The book
is more than an explosive work of investigative journalism—it is the deeply
moving chronicle of the many young men and women who signed up to serve their
country in the wake of 9/11, only to return home permanently damaged, the
victims of their own armed forces’ criminal negligence.

John Kiriakou, OtherWords:Joseph
Hickman's The Burn Pits exposes
a link between military service near burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan and serious maladies. The Pentagon's ban on
the book comes despite the fact that it's an Amazon best seller and has been
reviewed favorably in media around the world.
Read the Article

GLOBAL WARMING, MILITARY
BASES, RISING SEAS, PENTAGON, AND CONGRESS.
[I wonder if the latest Pentagon budget of $700 billion includes money
for base adaptation to global warming.
$700 billion more and the bill rising?!
--Dick]

Dear
Dick,
The military has had a strong presence in my family for decades. My
grandfather was in the first wave of marines who came ashore on Guadalcanal
in World War II, and my aunt and uncles have served and worked on Air
Force bases across the country and around the world. Their lives and
communities are interwoven with these bases, which is why our latest report on sea-level
rise at military basesis so personally alarming to me.
According to our analysis, by 2070, half of the bases studied could
experience 520 or more flood events annually—the equivalent of more
than one flood daily. And what happens to these bases affects the
communities and families, like mine, that work and live on them.
Thankfully, the Pentagon knows that global warming is a problem, and
some bases are already making an effort to reduce the risks they face
from rising seas due to climate change, but they need support to make
the necessary changes—and they aren’t getting it from Congress. We know
that climate change affects us all—including the military. We need to
work together to take action today. —Katy

The
Pentagon has created a climate preparedness plan that will help military
bases address the very real consequences of a warming world. Unfortunately,
last month the House voted to block the Defense Department from spending
money to implement the plan. We cannot tie the hands of our military as
they try to prepare for the impacts of climate change. Write today to urge your representative to support our military’s
climate action plans.

This article about the Pentagon's response to
rising seas threatening US bases around the world doesn’t mention UCS
participation in the global peace movement to oppose US imperialism with its
some 800 bases. The world would be
better off without these bases. Would
that end US rampages? No. But it would end worry over their flooding.

Dick Bennett

Movement to Eliminate
Military Bases
belonging to the U.S., the United Kingdom, and France which are located in
countries other than their own.

Cuba
Conference Opposes Foreign Bases

by
Dennis Apel and Lindis Percy. Space Alert! (Winter/Spring 2016). Global
Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

The Symposium for the Closure of Foreign
Military Bases is a gathering of concerned citizens from around the world
and is held in Guantanamo, Cuba. The fourth annual gathering was held this year
from November 23 through 25. The conference was attended by well over 200
people from 33 countries. The Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power
in Space sent two representatives; Lindis Percy from the United Kingdom and
Dennis Apel from the United States, both of whom presented at the conference.

Throughout the
conference it was clear that Cuba is taking the lead in the movement to eliminate military bases
belonging to the U.S., the United Kingdom and France which are located in
countries other than their own. The United States leads the three with over 800
military installations on foreign soil (even the Pentagon does not know how
many U.S. bases there are!). The U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo is possibly the
most notorious detention centre in modern times which still holds 170 people,
many of whom have been victims of torture and indefinite detention without
charges.

When Obama took office, the prison held 242
detainees, down from a peak of about 680 in 2003. Today, with little more than
a year remaining in his presidency, it still holds 107 detainees. Dennis’s
presentation gave an overview of the mission of the Global Network as well as
the impact of the U.S. Army base on Kwajalein Island in the Marshall Islands,
including the history of above-ground nuclear testing after World War II and
the continued testing of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles whose warheads
land in the lagoon at Kwajalein Atoll…(Continued at http://www.space4peace.org/newsletter/Space%20Alert%2033.pdf
)

4th INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR FOR
PEACE AND ABOLITION OF FOREIGN MILITARY BASES CALL
The World Peace Council (WPC) and theV Fifth International Seminar of Peace and the
Abolition of Foreign Military Bases being held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, from May
4 to 6, 2017. O A MAY 4 to 6, 2017About MAY 4 to 6, 20Home»Featured Articles» V
INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR OF PEACE AND FOR THE ABOLITION OF FOREIGN MILITARY BASES.
GUANTANAMO CUBA MAY 4 to 6, 2017INVITATION

The World Peace
Council, the Cuban Movement for Peace and Sovereignty of the People and the
Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), along with the
co-sponsorship of the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa,
Asia and Latin America (OSPAAAL), the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and the
Center for Reflection Oscar Arnulfo Romero, call organizations, fighters for
peace, anti-war and others committed to the idea that a better world is
possible, to participate in the V International Seminar of Peace and the
Abolition of Foreign Military Bases being held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, from
May 4 to 6, 2017. The presence of military bases of U.S. imperialism and its
NATO allies in many countries around the world, are against the will of the
vast majority of people in those countries. The bases represent flagrant
interference in the internal affairs of these countries and represent a clear
violation of the independence and sovereignty of these nations where they have
been installed.

As in the previous four
occasions, this International Seminar will take place in Guantanamo province where 117 square kilometers of its territory
has been illegal occupied by a US naval base that was turned into a center of
torture. It is well known that the base has become a center of the most
horrendous violations of human rights of the prisoners who have been there now
for more than a decade.

In addition, the V
International Seminar will be held in the context of the process of normalization
of relations between Cuba and the United States, whose cornerstone includes the
Cuba’s demand for the cessation of the economic, commercial and financial
blockade that the United States has imposed against Cuba and the return of the
illegally occupied territory at Guantánamo. This gross violation has taken
place against the legitimate will of the Cuban people for more than half a
century.

The V Seminar will take
place at a time when an offensive by imperialism with the Latin
American
oligarchies is underway against several social and political progressive
countries in the region, such as Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia and
Ecuador. The imperialists, using all the political tricks they have operating
in conjunction with the corporate media, seek to reverse the progress gains
made by these governments. Their plan is to dismantle the processes of
integration and development in the region.

In this regard, the V
Seminar will endorse once again the validity of the proclamation that Latin
America and the Caribbean are Zones of Peace, adopted by all Heads of State and
Governments of the Region at a meeting in Havana in January of 2014.
Those interested in attending the V Seminar can write to Silvio Platero Yrola,
President of the MovPaz at the following emails: presidmp@enet.cu , movpaz@enet.cu and
movpazri@enet.cu

In addition,
participants will have the opportunity for 10 minutes for presentations of
papers and interventions. Participants wishing to make a presentation need to
send their intervention in advance to Movpaz for the purposes of translation
into the corresponding language.

The AMISTUR CUBA S.A
Travel Agency of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) will
be responsible for ensuring the accommodations, transportation, and the general
logistics of the event.

See Program of the V
Seminar and the tourist package offered by AMISTUR for the participants in the
Seminar.

By Ann Wright, June 19,2017. ... The theme of
the seminar was “A World
of Peace is Possible.” ...
The U.S. has the overwhelming number of military bases in the lands of
other ... Photo of Veterans for Peacedelegation to the symposium ... Interestingly, Guantanamo Bay is not closed
to Cuba commercial cargo
freighters.

DIRECT ACTIONS
AGAINST THE BASES

Resistance
and Victory in Okinawa

By Tarak
Kauff. Peace in Our Times. Fall 2016.

http://www.classwars.org/PeaceTimesFall2016.pdf

A
delegation of six members of Veterans For Peace spent 10 days in Okinawa in September standing with the Okinawan
people against expansion of U.S. military facilities on the island. Although
the island is .6 percent of the Japanese land mass, it hosts 70 percent of the
U.S. military bases in the country. Half the size of Long Island, the island is
the site of 30 bases and home to 50,000
troops. The Okinawan people have been carrying out militant nonviolent
protests against the construction of helipads in the Yanbaru forests of the
northern Takae region, which the United States already uses for jungle warfare
training, as well as against the creation of a landing strip that will jut out
into pristine Oura Bay at Henoko. (Continued here: http://www.classwars.org/PeaceTimesFall2016.pdf)